Quantus and Inequality: A Quantum Model of Economic Stratification

This paper develops a quantum field theoretic framework for understanding income and wealth distributions as emergent phenomena driven by the irreducible quantum structure of human ideas, abilities, and innovations. Unlike classical models that treat individuals as deterministic agents and inequality as a policy failure, we model each person as a probabilistic wavefunction over discrete wealth and ability states—quantus—evolving under cognitive Hamiltonians and interacting through tunneling, entanglement, and field potentials. Wealth and income outcomes arise not from aggregate laws like r > g, but from superposed life trajectories and quantum interference. We critique the deterministic assumptions of Piketty and redistributionist programs, showing that taxation and subsidies cannot alter the underlying structure of cognitive amplitudes. Inequality, in this framework, is not an anomaly to be eliminated, but a signal of quantum diversity in a dynamic economic field. Policy must be redesigned to respect this structure, enabling natural transitions rather than coercive flattening.